Animal hair groomer



1957 M. T. DICK ETAL ANIMAL HAIR GROOMER Filed June 17, 1953 m M w W 2W m w m lmwm .m G .r a m Mr. M 9. or M. e w m n w W.

United States Patent ANIMAL HAIR GROOMER Marion Talbert Dick and Homer G. Hamilton, Des Moines, Iowa Application June 17, 1953, Serial No. 362,231

Claims. (Cl. 119-93) This invention relates to a hair combing device and more particularly to hair groomers for dogs.

One of the chief problems of keeping dogs in the owners dwelling quarters are the loose hairs that the animal continuously deposits on the carpets, chairs and the like. Many methods have been employed to avoid this objection, such as, frequent baths, plucking, brushes, combs, and the like. While such procedures do remove many hairs, the owner often thinks that the animal sheds even more than before. The reason for this is that many hairs are merely loosened, but at time of treatment were not loose enough to be removed.

Therefore, the principal object of our invention is to provide a combing device that pulls or tugs on the hair, thereby not only removing all the loose hairs but also those hairs that would normally drop out within the next few days.

A further object of this invention is to provide a combing device that has a facility for easily and quickly removing the acquired hair mat from the comb portion.

Still further objects of our invention are to provide a hair combing device that is economical in manufacture and durable in use, and refined in appearance.

These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Our invention consists in the construction, arrangement, and combination of the various parts of the device, whereby the objects contemplated are attained as hereinafter more fully set forth, and specifically pointed out in our claims, and illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of our device with dotted lines indicating the elevated position of the hair mat stripp Fig. 2 is a side view of our comb,

Fig. 3 is a cross sectional view of the comb taken on line 3-3 of Fig. 2, and

Fig. 4 is a bottom plan view of our animal comb and more fully illustrates its construction.

.In these drawings, we have used the numeral to designate the block base portion having a handle portion 11. Longitudinally, through the forward end portion of the base, we have formed four spaced apart slit openings for the reception of the four parallel spaced apart comb members 12, 13, 14 and respectively as shown in Fig. 3. These comb members may be secured within their respective slits by any suitable means. In the-drawings We use screws 16. The teeth of the comb members are all the same length, and it will be noted that comb 12 is coarse, comb 13 less coarse, comb 14 still less coarse, and comb 15 fine toothed. Thus the widths of teeth of the combs and the space between them decrease transversely from right to left. This makes for a tortuous path for any hair or strand of hair being combed. Furthermore, any given strand of hair will be subjected to ever decreasing channel widths as the tool is drawn through the same. This feature is the heart of the invention and explains why our comb tugs or pulls on the 2 ,7'8 1 ,73 9 Patented Feb. 19, 1957 2 hairs passing through it. This drag on the hair extends even to those hairs residing close to the skin, due to the elongated teeth of the tool. Any strands of hair being passed through by the comb element 12, will offer only minor resistance. These same strands, however, when passed through by the progressively arranged finer combs will be progressively pinched and compressed. Obviously such action will strip-pull all hairs resulting in loose hairs and all hairs offering minor resistance to being pulled out, in and between the combs. Such obtained hairs quickly form a mat which must be removed. We have accomplished this by a hinged stripper 17 on the base and having four slit openings 18 for normally embracing the bases of the four rows of comb teeth as shown in Fig. 1. By this arrangement the teeth of the combs will protrude normally beyond the mat stripper and will collect the detached hair also beyond the stripper. By merely raising the member 17 by the handle flange 19 the hair mat will be completely stripped from the combs and areas between them. This easy lifting of the shield stripper 17 is illustrated in Fig. 1. By lowering the stripper onto the bottom of the base 10, the cleaned tool will be again ready for use. If desired, the bottom of the base 10 may extend upwardly and forwardly to provide progressively longer teeth as the tool progresses longitudinally forward as shown in Fig. 2. By this arrangement the shorter teeth at the rear portion of the comb block will better process short or thin hair, while the longer teeth at the forward end portion will better serve long and thick hair.

While we have shown the combs separate, it is obvious that the block 10, and all the combs may be cast as a unit.

Some changes may be made in the construction and arrangement of our animal hair groomer without departing from the real spirit and purpose of our invention, and it is our intention to cover by our claims, any modified forms of structure or use of mechanical equivalents which may be reasonably included within their scope.

We claim:

1. In a hair groomer, a base member, a plurality of rows of spaced apart comb elements on said base member each having elongated teeth depending from the bottom of said base member and at least one of said rows of comb elements having finer teeth than at least one of the others; said rows of comb elements each having longer teeth as they progress in one direction.

2. In an animal hair groomer, a base portion, and a plurality of rows of spaced apart rigid elongated comb tooth elements with each row having finer teeth than the row next to it as said rows progress in transverse arrangement in one direction, so that when the groomer is pulled through hair in one direction, a progressively greater hair pulling action will take place.

3. In a hair groomer, a base member, and a plurality of rows of spaced apart rigid elongated comb tooth elements on said base member each row having elongated teeth depending from the bottom of said base member and each row having a smaller inbetween tooth space as the rows progress in one direction, whereby a progressively greater pulling action will result on the hair as the groomer is pulled in one transverse direction.

4. In an animal hair groomer, a base portion, a plurality of rows of spaced apart rigid elongated comb tooth elements with each row having finer teeth than the row next to it as said rows progress in transverse arrangement in one direction, so that when the groomer is pulled through hair in one direction, a progressively greater hair pulling action will take place, and a movable hair mat stripper on said base portion having slit openings slidably embracing said plurality of rows of teeth.

5. In a hair groomer, a base, a plurality of spaced 3 apart elongated rigid comb teeth arranged on the bottom of said base with the space between decreasing as they progress in transverse arrangement so that when the same is drawn through hair in one direction, the pull on the hair will be progressively greater.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 717,377 Flanders Dec. 30, 1902 Jenness June 10, 1890 10 

